22 & not a clue

I have three weekends left in Australia. I have one pair of jeans with a huge hole in the crotch from having lived in them since winter arrived in this beautiful city. I have one jumper and no coat and only my ambitions and hopes to keep me warm. They've kept me going from the start and helped keep negativity from the door. 

The world truly is a funny place. Last night I met an 18 year old who had never been kissed, never had a drink and never smoked anything in her life. And I just wanted to hold her like a baby dove in my hands. She looked so precious and fresh to the world.

When you tell someone you're in your 20s and you're a ______ (fill the blank). They may roll their eyes, or smile at you wistfully, pitying your naivety. You're a label and a uniform. A pay cheque away from the next purchase or a boyfriend away from 'the one'.

You are running from one dream to the next and slamming your sorry heart around without a care. You are living for the moments when you feel you've achieved something. When someone recognises your accomplishments, when your parents say they're proud or your friends say they're jealous. You are grasping at your future with claws unfurled.

At the same time most of the things you do are tinged with the feeling that it just doesn't count because you are supposed to spend this decade fucking up. You're supposed to be learning all of life's lessons one bad decision at a time. So to hear that this learning curve isn't meant to go on for an entire decade, but more to be built upon and seized is a cause for relief. Because it means you're not mad to think it's not ok to waste the next 8 years screwing around. Which seems to be the conscious decision of most of your peers at times.

I have never wanted to play 'emotional musical chairs' with men, however it feels it has happened that way regardless at times. I don't know a woman who isn't guilty of choosing less than what she deserved it feels an inherent part of the modern female mindset. We choose wrongly because we choose to treat our twenties like a rough draft - it'll make a better story I suppose. However in the end we are using up precious time and rambling through paragraphs of a life we cannot re-write. We can't then rush in to another decade once we hit thirty expecting it to be easy to find a partner and settle down. Time catches up with us eventually.

Build on your experiences from one to the next. Cut loose the dead weight friends, choose the off the wall ideas and go with them. Because ultimately the new friends will bring the new people and new opportunities which will broaden your horizons and maybe even change your life. Never stop being curious. Don't sit there being the only one still running around to the music so you grab the closest chair - walk away from the party & find a new one. Don't lose your innocence and appreciation for the simple, at the same time don't accept less than what will make you happiest. Forgive yourself all your mistakes - learn from them.

Being a twenty something was never going to be easy and as I sit awaiting June 30th & my first ever tax return, part of me wishes I could still be the 15 year old girl who just wanted the perfect denim skirt.

I have always felt that Melbourne is London & San Francisco's love child, a riot of colour, cuisine and life. Having said that, the longer I stay the more it feels like Melbourne is in fact London, high. It is stuffed and practically comatose it is soo chilled. The good times are a plenty here, they are all for the taking. Anything is achievable here in Australia, just don't break a sweat unless you have to - that is what it feels like to live in this city. Sounds heavenly doesn't it?

I'm starting to feel more and more that Melbourne will be ideal in 20 years time when I am done fighting for a career, it will be an idyllic place to be married and do all of that. But right now it just isn’t hungry enough for me. It is gluttonous with easy going attitudes that just don’t force me to push harder. I don't feel any do-or-die about this city.

Part of coming out here was to figure out where to next. I had to decide what it was that drove me, not just a 2.1 or any job that pays anymore. Student days are now behind me. What actually sets my world on fire? Because what I choose next could end up being the path I follow for the rest of my life. I don't want to be chasing a goal that isn't right for me. I want to do what I love and love what I do. Turns out what I truly love is to write.

Since being out here I have written nearly every day. I have picked up the pen & run with it in a way I never have done before. I have made connections and gained valuable experiences. I have gotten out of my head and comfort zone completely and learnt more about myself than I believe I would have done had I stayed in London.

Coming out here after uni has been a great decision. Hindsight knows everything, that bitch. I came out here to the sunshine, to the good food & to the endless opportunities. I have earned more here than in my life to date. I have gotten to know a part of my family I didn't before and I have proved to myself that I can do this - be an adult; be financially independent & responsible for myself. I can take care of myself. Thanks.

So the decision to go home hasn't been an easy one. Indeed some have called me mad to go back to what is a bleak existence in a cold & grey part of the world in a dreadful financial climate. But the truth is that you can't replace people and you can't change goals. Not easily at least. Nothing can compensate being able to see my family for a weekend or having great friends around me. That isn't replaceable & certainly not with a two year visa. No, 13 months is long enough to be away for me. I will go back with my head firmly in the game. A vast difference to how I left for sure. I will come back with more experience & self assurity knowing that nothing is ever truly 'the end of the world'. What I come home to I have no control over. But so long as I take home all the positives of this experience then I can say with confidence that I have no regrets about this decision.



So thank you Australia. Thank you for giving me the past six months of sunshine, the hottest summer on record, a good job, wonderful new friends & the whackiest apartment that has to be seen to be believed. Here's to the remaining six. London, be ready.

I always say at some point I will turn my life into a book, or maybe a tv series. But then GIRLS happened & Lena Dunham stole all my ideas. Regardless I have to believe my life can't be this ridiculous without a good reason - to publish it.

What happened the other night is the stuff of nightmares. Living this far away from the origin of all yours sins sort of gives you an undue sense of confidence. You aren't going to run into any exes or bitches out here. But no one prepared me for running into their ghosts.

Sitting outside in the cool Melbourne air on Monday night; casually whiling away the hours before bed time & the start of yet another working week. A Flatmate had friends round & here enters our character: Adam. Adam is a Brit, but unlike ever other Pom round these parts he has a more sunny disposition. Everything had a silver lining to Adam's perspective & thank god for that.

We're chilling out, discussing hilarious and disastrous dating experiences in the efforts to cheer up a Canadian friend who has just been jilted by Love. It's my turn, which should I choose? There have been a few. One particular period stands out vividly but that's another story.

Adam hails from a particularly grey area of Essex where it just so happens an ex came from also. He reminds me of this & I laugh. I give away a few details; the predilection for weed, the disastrous hair & then finally the reason we parted: 'You should sleep with other people'.
"I mean who says that!?" I shouted. No but really? It wasn't until the final detail I revealed that Adam stands & is convinced that's his friend Blaine. 'It's Blaine! It is not Blaine! Ginger pubes? That's Blaine!'

Fuck. it was. But I mean how many guys from Essex do you know with ginger pubes & natural black hair? My horrendous romantic choices had come to haunt me & Adam was only too willing to tell me how pathetic they were. My flat mates couldn't get over it. This was hilarious. I wanted to be sick.

The topic didn't drop all night & I no longer feel safe in public. How many other ghosts are out there hidden behind the guise of a well meaning friend or acquaintance? I am living proof that you can come 10&1/2 Thousand miles & still be haunted by your past. Try as you might, no matter how much ice cream or wine you pile on top of that one there is no escaping your past. It will always be there like a spot without a head you are watching over in agony.

There is no escape Guys. I just take comfort in the knowledge that I didn't come out here running away from anything. This isn't an escape & despite my melodramatic musings: my history isn't that bad, but if it could be a while between this & the next ghost I'd appreciate it.